Wil takes a rental car to a Formula 1 track in the rain

So, last month I got an invitation to bring the IDB Racing Time Attack BMW M3 out to a Chin Motorsports trackday at Circuit Of The Americas in Austin. I jumped at the opportunity; however, as the event got closer and closer and ultimately was only a few days away, not only was the weather absolute garbage but I hadn't been able to get things moved around in the shop to get the M3 out and tidied up for the event. With the skies looking ever-more gloomy, I briefly discussed borrowing my pal, fellow Pikes Peak racer, and owner of Rally Ready Driving School Dave Carapetyan's Mazda that he raced at Pikes Peak earlier this year - but tire and fuel concerns were casting a dark shadow on that idea as well...until Dave and I came up with the brilliant idea to just rent a damn car for the weekend. Upon doing some research, I found a company not too far from the track that had a 2015 Audi A4 Quattro available to be rented at a super affordable price. After spending some time reviewing their rental agreement - specifically the 'Prohibited Use of Vehicle' area - I was overjoyed to find that so long as it wasn't used "in a speed test or contest; in a driver training activity; or on unpaved roads" that taking the car to the COTA trackday - which Chin Motorsports very explicitly states is NOT a race - was completely within the company's rental agreement! We picked the car up early that morning and drove it to the track, and despite it being damp and dismal outside, even with the lack of traction magnified by the craptastic rental-car tires we had an absolute blasty-blast! I took the Racelogic Video V-box out of the M3 and brought along to put in the Audi, along with my Optrix XD5 mount/case/what have you for my iPhone to capture video. I tried to run Harry's Lap Timer on the iPhone as well (that's actually the app I used for the video) but I couldn't get it to recognize where we were on the track or start recording, and also couldn't get it to display the overlay on the video...but, regardless, it was an AWESOME day!
(just uploaded this video at 3:40, trimmed it via YouTube to start at 7:28 - that's when I get around the car that was in front of me and get a few decent laps in. Also may take a bit for it to process to full-res 1080...so check back later for better video quality!)

(click & zoom for full-res photos)

Video from my iPhone 5S in an Optrix XD5 case, photos by myself and Bleasdell Photography.